The murder victim’s mother, tearful and angry, had no patience with the woman convicted of setting up the armed robbery that led to his death.

After speaking in court before the sentencing of Madge Ellen Matthews for first-degree felony murder, Otelia Coleman strode angrily out of the courtroom while Matthews denied her guilt.

Matthews, 43, of Muskegon Heights was sentenced Thursday to the mandatory term of life without parole for her role in the shooting death of Jeremy “Tookie” Lawrence. Fourteenth Circuit Judge James M. Graves Jr. also sentenced her to a term of 40 to 75 years for conspiracy to commit armed robbery. She was sentenced as a fourth-time habitual offender.

A Muskegon County jury last month convicted her of both counts in the Aug. 23, 2010, killing of Lawrence, 23, during a botched holdup. Matthews testified in her own defense at the three-day trial, denying any connection with the robbery, but jurors didn’t believe her.

Jeremy "Tookie" Lawrence

Matthews, a parolee at the time of the crime, was convicted of helping arrange the holdup that led to Lawrence’s shooting after she lured him by telephone to the Heights Motel at 3300 Hoyt by making him think he would be selling crack cocaine to a customer.

Speaking in court before the sentencing, Coleman said, “I miss my son every day. ... (Matthews) came out with no remorse, she lied all the way through.”

Matthews, as she did at the trial, denied guilt. “I am innocent of this charge,” she said. “I have remorse for the victim, but ... I can’t confess to a crime I didn’t commit.

“I feel I was not properly defended,” she said of her representation by court-appointed public defender Fred J. Lesica.

Robinson is accused of being one of at least two men who robbed Lawrence at gunpoint after a woman — identified as Matthews — called Lawrence to set up a supposed drug deal around 3 a.m. Authorities have not been able to definitely identify who else was involved but believe Robinson was the shooter.

According to a woman who was in the car with Lawrence, he was shot while starting to drive away from the robbery. The woman testified that she grabbed the wheel from the dying Lawrence, jumped on his lap and desperately fled from the pursuing robbers, eventually getting away.

The same witness testified that she earlier heard Lawrence on his cell phone with a woman calling herself "Madge," arranging the transaction.

Another witness, a former jail cellmate of Matthews, testified that Matthews told her about having set up the fake drug deal, and that Matthews described witnessing the robbery.

Before her trial, Matthews already was lodged in prison for violating parole on earlier convictions of resisting and obstructing police and uttering and publishing. Her prison record also shows prior convictions of larceny in a building, assaulting a jail employee and first-degree retail fraud.